Retractable

Henning said:
I have a cheap simple solution for the retract requirement. A plastic clamshell inside the wheel pant with a little electric servo to flip it up or down. Forget the switch on the dash and you eat $10 worth of easy to replace molded plastic.
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Diamond Aircraft proposed something like that almost ten years ago. The FAA turned it down.
 
I say drop it from the commercial. Nobody cares. The are always gaps in any training. If its an issue the insurance companies will mandate some specific instruction.
 
Ron Levy said:
This isn't Africa, and I'll still bet there are more Cirri than 210's in commercial pilot operations in this country.
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In the 4 years i flew over most of africa i recall seeing no 210's doing any paying work. And that was before cirri came on the scene.

The comment on this strikes me as someone throwing out a sticky note about a place they perceive as far away in hopes no one knows any better. Really the fact the statement was made at all shows the folly of it. Most countries in africa if you're flying a 210 then you've got a type rating for 210's, a cirrus then a type rating for that model of cirrus.
 
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Ron Levy said:
Having flown both reasonably extensively, I'd say a Cirrus Perspective is a lot more challenging in that regard than a legacy Piper Arrow.
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In all fairness, which do you have more time in? The Piper Arrow, or the Cirrus Perspective? I suspect that your comfort in the Arrow comes from hundreds of hours at the controls in that aircraft and many others that are very similar.
 
Dav8or said:
In all fairness, which do you have more time in? The Piper Arrow, or the Cirrus Perspective? I suspect that your comfort in the Arrow comes from hundreds of hours at the controls in that aircraft and many others that are very similar.
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I'd guess his point is that when it comes to evaluating multi-tasking, glass airplane buttonology has a lot more workload than a gear switch that you touch twice per flight.
 
JHW said:
In the 4 years i flew over most of africa i recall seeing no 210's doing any paying work. And that was before cirri came on the scene.

The comment on this strikes me as someone throwing out a sticky note about a place they perceive as far away in hopes no one knows any better. Really the fact the statement was made at all shows the folly of it. Most countries in africa if you're flying a 210 then you've got a type rating for 210's, a cirrus then a type rating for that model of cirrus.
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Where in Africa?

210s have been swarming in Nam and Bots for quite a while.
 
to be fair, as you like so much to remind us all, I and many others here are mere hobby pilots. We are not all-knowing professional pilots like yourself, able to pronounce absolute truth on any topic. So all I can say is that based on the pilot and engineer (mechanic) licenses I held in South Africa, Botswana, Nigeria, and Morocco, none of them would have been remotely relevant to whether an FAA commercial license in the USA dealt with retractable gear or not.
 
JHW said:
I'd guess his point is that when it comes to evaluating multi-tasking, glass airplane buttonology has a lot more workload than a gear switch that you touch twice per flight.
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I'd certainly agree with that. There is nothing difficult about gear, and even when you mess up, it's really not that big of a deal, just skins up some metal.
 
Dav8or said:
In all fairness, which do you have more time in? The Piper Arrow, or the Cirrus Perspective? I suspect that your comfort in the Arrow comes from hundreds of hours at the controls in that aircraft and many others that are very similar.
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I'm completely comfortable in both, and I don't think I said otherwise.
 
JHW said:
I'd guess his point is that when it comes to evaluating multi-tasking, glass airplane buttonology has a lot more workload than a gear switch that you touch twice per flight.
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Jeff guesses correctly, and I apologize for not making that point more clearly.
 
Henning said:
Retracts were still ubiquitous to rent back then, times have changed.
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Ubiquitous? No, I don't think so. Even 10 years ago, it was generally just one worn-out Arrow/Cutlass/Sierra used only by flight schools for CP training.
 
Ron Levy said:
Ubiquitous? No, I don't think so. Even 10 years ago, it was generally just one worn-out Arrow/Cutlass/Sierra used only by flight schools for CP training.
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Right, now they don't exist at most of the flight schools either, at least around here.
 
Ron Levy said:
Ubiquitous? No, I don't think so. Even 10 years ago, it was generally just one worn-out Arrow/Cutlass/Sierra used only by flight schools for CP training.
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I was fortunate to find an exception when I was doing a ton of business flying out of KVNY in the early 1990s. In addition to the usual Warriors and Archers, Van Nuys Flight Center's rental line included two Turbo Arrow IVs, two Saratogas (NA and turbo), two Mooney 201s and two Mooney 252s. The rates were reasonable for those days, too. I put about 400 hours on those airplanes. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity.
 
JHW said:
I'd guess his point is that when it comes to evaluating multi-tasking, glass airplane buttonology has a lot more workload than a gear switch that you touch twice per flight.
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BTW, the FAA recognizes this, which is why their failed proposal was to require 10 hours of training in either a complex airplane or a TAA (Technologically Advanced Aircraft, i.e., one with an IFR GPS, a moving map display, and an autopilots). Personally, considering the issues described at national conferences by regional carrier training managers with their new hires, I think 10 hours in a Cirrus Perspective would be a lot more appropriate than 10 hours in an old 6-pack Arrow with nothing more than a KX-155 for avionics for someone headed that way. The big issues are not putting the gear handle up and down, but dealing with cockpit automation and staying ahead of the plane. So which of those two planes do you think can be better used to fix those identified problem areas in commercial flying?
 
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Ron Levy said:
BTW, the FAA recognizes this, which is why their failed proposal was to require 10 hours of training in either a complex airplane or a TAA (Technologically Advanced Aircraft, i.e., one with an IFR GPS, a moving map display, and an autopilots). Personally, considering the issues described at national conferences by regional carrier training managers with their new hires, I think 10 hours in a Cirrus Perspective would be a lot more appropriate than 10 hours in an old 6-pack Arrow with nothing more than a KX-155 for avionics for someone headed that way. The big issues are not putting the gear handle up and down, but dealing with cockpit automation and staying ahead of the plane. So which of those two planes do you think can be better used to fix those identified problem areas in commercial flying?
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In addition to what you say, there is also the argument that there are an awful lot of commercial aviation jobs that use fixed gear and sometimes very simple airplanes. The guys that tow gliders, or haul parachutists, or inspect pipelines don't really need much training on complex airplanes. It seems that the complex endorsement covers this if and when they might actually need a faster plane for employment.
 
My commercial flying has been approx 3/4rs fixed, 1/4 retract.
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
fast airplanes are over-rated......:goofy:
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I think 3 miles a minute makes a fair compromise between speed and efficiency. Even in a country the size of America, I can get from here in Ft Lauderdale to Seattle in a day. It's a long day for sure, but it's doable, coming home is not such a long day.:D 4 miles a minute would be nicer, but the cost goes up by the square. Actually, that holds reasonably accurately as one goes up in speed. Supersonic and hypersonic transitions would be interesting to try to quantify though.

Just like every doubling of speed requires a square increase in power, every mile a minute increase in speed requires a square increase in money.:lol:
 
Henning said:
Just like every doubling of speed requires a square increase in power, every mile a minute increase in speed requires a square increase in money.:lol:
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If you look at the "for sale" ads for some of the speedy GA airplanes -- Eclipse 500, TBM etc. -- you see a large number where total hours and total cycles are about the same.

Maybe that's why they're for sale. The price of vanity? Perhaps.
 
Ken Ibold said:
If you look at the "for sale" ads for some of the speedy GA airplanes -- Eclipse 500, TBM etc. -- you see a large number where total hours and total cycles are about the same.

Maybe that's why they're for sale. The price of vanity? Perhaps.
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Very likely, I run into that in the yacht industry as well, people don't understand that they are going to have to come up with 10-20% of that purchase cost every year to operate. The cost of going from 2 to 3 miles a minute is significant enough for me.
 
My vote would be to add flexibility for initial Commercial Pilot certification due to the lack of available SEL retracts and the challenges of TAAs.

CP-A:SEL -- Either a Complex A/C *OR* a TAA
CP-A:MEL -- Complex

Does anyone make a profit, or even break even, providing a single-engine retract for rent?
 
Larry in TN said:
My vote would be to add flexibility for initial Commercial Pilot certification due to the lack of available SEL retracts and the challenges of TAAs.

CP-A:SEL -- Either a Complex A/C *OR* a TAA
CP-A:MEL -- Complex
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Well, that's pretty much what the FAA wanted, not that you have much choice about complex with a ME trainer.
 
I would like to see them get rid of the requirement. I don't have any need for it now and wont have any need for it after getting my CPL. I can see how it will irritate some of you that had to do it, but it does not make sense to me. I think a stick on fake retract switch or get rid of it all together.
 
JasonM said:
I would like to see them get rid of the requirement. I don't have any need for it now and wont have any need for it after getting my CPL. I can see how it will irritate some of you that had to do it, but it does not make sense to me.
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Since I got my CP in 1972, I never had to do complex as part of that certificate's requirements. Looking back, the first complex plane I had to use my CP to fly was a twin, and by then I'd done my ME training in that complex twin. And that's the point.
 
If you could be a little more specific about your location, maybe someone will know of something that would be more convenient for you.
 
Palmpilot said:
If you could be a little more specific about your location, maybe someone will know of something that would be more convenient for you.
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Yeah, there is a reason there is a location field in profiles, it's nice when people use them.
 
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